Tag: Social Media

Wikipedia seems to be attracting even more Pharma interest in recent weeks, particularly as a recent IMS report highlighted how much doctors and patients rely on its content.

It was a pretty immersive week for me last week regarding Wikipedia:

A breakfast meeting on the subject

Meeting up with some devout Wikipedians over Sunday lunch

Finding a little time to make some edits of my own (non pharma related of course)

Personally fielding some professional questions about this fascinating community of knowledge

I saw an excellent presentation from, Paul W , a veteran Wikipedian, with 10 years tenure, over 10,000 edits and nearly 400 articles to his name. He is also a professional PR guy. You could be forgiven for thinking that these 2 personas would not sit comfortably in the same room, let alone in one human shell.

Paul shared some valuable Wikipedia guidance for PR agencies, that demonstrate PR & Wikipedia are not incompatible entities, as long as the right approach is taken.

These guidelines actually make very useful reading for those in Pharma. Page 10 is particularly interesting as it outlines the steps required when editing. There is also a nice summary of Do’s and Don’ts.

These guidelines were created collaboratively on an open Wikipedia page, with input from the community.

Meeting ‘real life’ Wikipedians was an interesting experience. My discussions with them reinforced the need that anyone with a conflict of interest needs to work with the community to make edits. I met an administrator who proudly declared he had deleted over 100,000 pages. While this deletion count seems to be a badge of honour, the motivation behind this, is ensuring Wikipedia, is of a high quality and authored from a neutral point of view. So any ill advised attempts by Pharma to blunder in and start editing drug or disease pages will inevitably backfire.

Some of my Wikipedia recommendations:

Work with the community. Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view (one of its five pillars ) The premise is that if you work for a Pharma company, then your opinion about that company, one of its drugs or disease areas, will be biased. The solution is to work with the community to develop content, identify suitable editors who have contributed good quality articles on similar subjects, suggest articles for creation, use forms to request an edit or use the talk pages.

Be transparent and declare conflicts of interest If you try to contribute under XPharmaCo it won’t work and rightly so. Corporate or group accounts are not allowed on Wikipedia. It should be, for example, Rebecca, who, on her user page, clearly states she works for XPharmaCo, outlines her conflicts of interest and intent.

Be human You need to speak like a person not a corporation. Any attempts at corporate speak or a heavy handed approach will simply be met with contempt. Wikipedia is not a corporation rather a community of dedicated volunteers.

Be bold Industry regulations are unclear when it comes to Wikipedia. Take a clear ethical and considered standpoint. You will need to have a plan however don’t expect clear regulatory guidance. The UK PMCPA digital guidance spectacularly misses the point, suggesting if a company starts editing Wikipedia it should ensure everything is correct. I am afraid the community and consensual nature of Wikipedia makes this impossible to guarantee.

Have a go If you think Wikipedia is of interest why not try editing it yourself! You may also want to look for volunteers in your organisation to start making edits. Clearly these edits need to be outside of any conflicted area and the above bullet points still apply!

I look forward to hearing your opinions or examples where Pharma is currently or is planning to get involved with the Wikipedia community. And if you have any suggested edits for this blog just let me know…